- What it does
- A network connecting estate agents, conveyancers, mortgage brokers and lenders needed engineering scale without losing its culture. We built and employed the team in India, and ran delivery alongside the in-house team.
- The control
- The exit is written into the arrangement. Every engineer was novated in-house as the company grew: contracts transferred, nothing renegotiated.
- Failure
- Speed from an agency at the cost of cohesion, or cohesion from slow direct hiring at the cost of the roadmap.
- Unit of work
- One team with one set of rituals, rather than two teams sharing a roadmap.
- Authority
- Named systems
- Client has not disclosed the stack
- Claims
- The intervention and the transfer: an India-based team found against the client’s own bar, embedded with the in-house team, and novated in-house. A separate sensitivity model converts a 90-day approximate direct-hiring input against the 31-day median across 14 roles into roughly 590 working engineer-days. At a modelled $1,500 to $2,500 per working engineer-day, it values the accelerated capacity at approximately $885,000 to $1.48 million.
- Non-claims
- The network’s growth and transaction figures. They belong to the client, not to us.
- Evidence held
- Fourteen engineers found and employed in India. All fourteen novated in-house, and twelve were still in post a year after the transfer.
- Status
- Handed over
A team built to be handed over
Scale engineering quickly after a raise, at high quality, without diluting the culture the in-house team had built.
Fields with nothing behind them are ruled rather than removed. A missing row is invisible, and a reader cannot audit what they cannot see.
The same ten fields, with the arguments behind them.
Two lines that meet at novation.
This is the part a reference case-study template has no slot for, because most engagements have only one line in them. Here the delivery line and the employment line run in parallel from the first engineer to the last transfer, and the whole design is that they end at the same point.
Map
The client’s own bar, written down.
Not our bar and not a generic one: the standard their existing team already hired against, made explicit enough to assess against.
Delivery line
Embedded from the first day.
Same rituals, same standards, same roadmap, same stand-up. No parallel process and no second backlog.
Employment line
Built and employed in India.
Contracts, payroll and statutory obligations carried by Esya in India.
Fourteen India-based engineers
Two lines, one team: the client directed every engineer while Esya employed every engineer
Novation
Contracts transferred, nothing renegotiated.
Employment moves to the client as the company grows. The engineer’s terms travel with them.
Fourteen of fourteen novated in-house
Run
The team is theirs, and stays.
The engagement is meant to end here. What is left behind is a team on the client’s own payroll.
Twelve of fourteen still in post a year after transfer
Before and after.
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering capacity | In-house team at pre-raise size | Fourteen India-based engineers, shipping the same roadmap |
| Time to a new engineer at a desk | Approximate 90-day direct-hiring model input | Nineteen days for the first, thirty-one median |
| Employment at the end of the engagement | No Esya employment | All fourteen novated in-house; twelve still in post a year on |
Deliberately excluded from this page: the network’s growth and transaction figures. They belong to the client, not to us.
Nobody on the team could have told you which engineers were on which contract, and that was the whole point.
Approved testimonial wording · Engineering lead at the client
Roughly 590 working engineer-days brought forward, with the team retained.
Using 90 days as the model input for the approximate direct-hiring baseline, and comparing it with the 31-day median achieved here, 14 roles bring approximately 826 elapsed engineer-days forward. Converting that interval to a five-day working week gives roughly 590 working engineer-days. At a modelled $1,500 to $2,500 of roadmap value per working engineer-day, that is approximately $885,000 to $1.48 million of accelerated capacity. Twelve of the fourteen engineers were still in post a year after transfer.
| Assumption | Model |
|---|---|
| Roles | 14 |
| Elapsed time brought forward | Approximately 826 engineer-days |
| Working time brought forward | Roughly 590 engineer-days |
| Roadmap value | $1,500 to $2,500 per working engineer-day |
| Accelerated capacity | Approximately $885,000 to $1.48 million |
This is a sensitivity model, not a claim about salaries or the network’s commercial results. It prices time-to-capacity and leaves transaction growth outside the case.
What this case does not claim.
No commercial result for the network. Growth and transaction figures measure the client’s business and not our intervention in it.
No claim that every engagement ends in a full transfer. This one did, and it is the model working as designed, but a company that grows differently transfers differently.
No stack. What the team built with is the client’s to disclose, and they have not, so the field on the card is ruled rather than guessed.